“I get letters,” Gabriel says. “They all know what they want the memorial to be and what they don’t want it to be. The trouble is that they don’t agree. One person writes that the figure has to be realistic, un fils de la terre, while a second wants a heroic homme de guerre. Another says that it should not be a soldier at all, but a mother, a Vierge Marie, a mother of Christ stripped of her son. Others tell me that it must not be triumphal; it must be a proletarian, socialist expression of loss—an old man struggling with the plow. Others want a symbol of Peace, a figure of Justice, a winged Victory, and I have no idea what is right!” He throws his hands in the air and looks at Harry. “Is this peace? Is this victory? Is this justice? How am I supposed to make that decision? How can I sum all of this up?”

“You were a soldier. You saw it. I guess that, as far as they’re concerned, you’re more able to sum it up than someone who wasn’t here.”

“Do you think? I wish I had your confidence.”

“I have confidence in you. Will you send me a sketch when you get there?”

“Of course. I must give you my address for the photograph,” he says, then pauses. “Or you can bring it—you can deliver it by hand. If the weather holds, I’ll get a second cut of hay by the end of the month. Come with me. Another pair of hands would be very welcome. It is heavy work, but lighter than all of this.”

“I am tempted. Believe me, I’d love to leave this place behind, but I have sixteen names in my pocket and I’ve promised to deliver these photographs.”

“Well then, cross off your sixteenth name as soon as you are able and get on a train.”

Harry thinks about the possibility of crossing the last name—Francis’s name—off his list, and what the likelihood of being able to decisively do so would entail. It would require a grave, or to stand face-to-face with Francis again. Both scenarios seem remote at this moment, and their consequences beyond contemplation, but he watches Gabriel writing out the address on the back of a used train ticket, the foreign name forming in his copperplate letters.

“Calvaire du Quercy? As in Calvary? The place of the cross?”

“The place of my childhood is all crosses and saints’ bones and shrines.” Gabriel shrugs. “We hope fiercely and are probably fools.”